5 ms·

Zoom has received a fair bit of critical feedback lately. Has anyone given other platforms such as Vidyo identical levels of scrutiny?

ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
TBF it's mostly short sellers doing this, because the complaints have been... poor. The first one was about an advertisement pixel, which everybody is doing but for some reason surfaced only for Zoom. The second one is end-to-end encryption, which is not expected at all for VC apps. NOBODY does it!
- fsh 7y ago
  I really hope that this stupid "short seller conspiracy" meme is going away soon. According to the article Apple does end-to-end encryption for video conferences. Also other providers are not lying about it like zoom does.
  - ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
    Apple has a VC product? I wasn't aware of this
    - fsh 7y ago
      FaceTime can do group chats since 2018.
- honesttoss 7y ago
  >NOBODY does it! Irrelevant. That as nothing to due with the fact that they say they are. Zoom is being completely dishonest, and as some other commented here, some orgs like in health care area, have E2E encryption as requirement, Zoom says they have, but don't. It's literally fraud.
  - gtirloni 7y ago
    Where does it say they have e2e video encryption? I can only find something about chats.
    - mabcat 7y ago
      https://zoom.us/healthcare https://zoom.us/healthcare "Achieve HIPAA (signed BAA) and PIPEDA/PHIPA compliance with complete end-to-end 256-bit AES encryption."
      - drjesusphd 7y ago
        What if one pays $200/mo for the HIPAA-compliant plans?
      - ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
        1. HIPAA et al have very specific meaning that do not have anything to do with end-to-end encryption at all. If you know this, read this line, and care about HIPAA you know exactly this. 2. end-to-end has several meanings, for users it means what Signal does, for machines it means TLS is securing edges.
- phonon 7y ago
  > NOBODY does it! Google Duo does. https://support.google.com/duo/answer/9280240?hl=en https://support.google.com/duo/answer/9280240?hl=en
  - ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
    It is not a VC application, it's a user chat application
    - phonon 7y ago
      You can have a group call with up to 12 people now. https://www.neowin.net/news/google-duo-now-supports-up-to-12-people-in-a-group-video-call/ https://www.neowin.net/news/google-duo-now-supports-up-to-12...
vmednis 7y ago
I'm usually not the one for conspiracy theories and this is most likely just media outlets fixating on one topic for clicks, but sometimes this just feels like a smear campaign against Zoom. I'm sure a lot of these issues could be found for other providers as well.
- Flimm 7y ago
  Name one provider that claims to provide end-to-end encrypted video calls but doesn't.
  - vmednis 7y ago
    GoToMeeting claims end to end encryption[1] and in the same sentence say it's just SSL just like Zoom. Never the less they offer call-in as well so end to end becomes impossible right there. I have serious doubts about any conference software offering real end to end encryption as it's unrealistic for clients to be dealing with that many av streams. 1. https://support.goto.com/meeting/help/security-faqs-g2m050014 https://support.goto.com/meeting/help/security-faqs-g2m05001...
    - comex 7y ago
      End-to-end encryption doesn't require participants to receive full-quality video from everyone. Each client can be responsible for encoding their own video feed at multiple quality levels simultaneously – what WebRTC calls simulcasting. That does increase required processing power and upload bandwidth, but not to the point of infeasibility. And you do inevitably leak the identity of the person currently talking, as the server has to know whether to relay the high- or low-quality video stream for each participant to each other participant, and it can trivially tell the difference between the two based on bitrate. But that's much less bad than leaking the whole video stream.
      - xenonite 7y ago
        To add on this, an encrypted stream with a variable bitrate encoding allows to guess the amount of transmitted information entropy.

ccktlmazeltov 7y ago

TBF it's mostly short sellers doing this, because the complaints have been... poor. The first one was about an advertisement pixel, which everybody is doing but for some reason surfaced only for Zoom. The second one is end-to-end encryption, which is not expected at all for VC apps. NOBODY does it!

fsh 7y ago
I really hope that this stupid "short seller conspiracy" meme is going away soon. According to the article Apple does end-to-end encryption for video conferences. Also other providers are not lying about it like zoom does.
- ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
  Apple has a VC product? I wasn't aware of this
  - fsh 7y ago
    FaceTime can do group chats since 2018.
honesttoss 7y ago
>NOBODY does it! Irrelevant. That as nothing to due with the fact that they say they are. Zoom is being completely dishonest, and as some other commented here, some orgs like in health care area, have E2E encryption as requirement, Zoom says they have, but don't. It's literally fraud.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  Where does it say they have e2e video encryption? I can only find something about chats.
  - mabcat 7y ago
    https://zoom.us/healthcare https://zoom.us/healthcare "Achieve HIPAA (signed BAA) and PIPEDA/PHIPA compliance with complete end-to-end 256-bit AES encryption."
    - drjesusphd 7y ago
      What if one pays $200/mo for the HIPAA-compliant plans?
    - ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
      1. HIPAA et al have very specific meaning that do not have anything to do with end-to-end encryption at all. If you know this, read this line, and care about HIPAA you know exactly this. 2. end-to-end has several meanings, for users it means what Signal does, for machines it means TLS is securing edges.
phonon 7y ago
> NOBODY does it! Google Duo does. https://support.google.com/duo/answer/9280240?hl=en https://support.google.com/duo/answer/9280240?hl=en
- ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
  It is not a VC application, it's a user chat application
  - phonon 7y ago
    You can have a group call with up to 12 people now. https://www.neowin.net/news/google-duo-now-supports-up-to-12-people-in-a-group-video-call/ https://www.neowin.net/news/google-duo-now-supports-up-to-12...

vmednis 7y ago

I'm usually not the one for conspiracy theories and this is most likely just media outlets fixating on one topic for clicks, but sometimes this just feels like a smear campaign against Zoom. I'm sure a lot of these issues could be found for other providers as well.

Flimm 7y ago
Name one provider that claims to provide end-to-end encrypted video calls but doesn't.
- vmednis 7y ago
  GoToMeeting claims end to end encryption[1] and in the same sentence say it's just SSL just like Zoom. Never the less they offer call-in as well so end to end becomes impossible right there. I have serious doubts about any conference software offering real end to end encryption as it's unrealistic for clients to be dealing with that many av streams. 1. https://support.goto.com/meeting/help/security-faqs-g2m050014 https://support.goto.com/meeting/help/security-faqs-g2m05001...
  - comex 7y ago
    End-to-end encryption doesn't require participants to receive full-quality video from everyone. Each client can be responsible for encoding their own video feed at multiple quality levels simultaneously – what WebRTC calls simulcasting. That does increase required processing power and upload bandwidth, but not to the point of infeasibility. And you do inevitably leak the identity of the person currently talking, as the server has to know whether to relay the high- or low-quality video stream for each participant to each other participant, and it can trivially tell the difference between the two based on bitrate. But that's much less bad than leaking the whole video stream.
    - xenonite 7y ago
      To add on this, an encrypted stream with a variable bitrate encoding allows to guess the amount of transmitted information entropy.